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House Calls, Circa 2002
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Business New Haven
11/11/2002
By: Christine Thomas
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You know the future is now in health care when it's possible to check in with your primary-care physician without stepping into the doctor's office. ConnectiCare, a Farmington-based managed-care company, has decided to continue webVisit, a successful online pilot program that allows patients to communicate with their physicians via the Internet.
ConnectiCare began participating in the RelayHealth study in the fall of 2001, along with ProHealth Physicians, a group practice of some 160 primary-care physicians in Connecticut. Three thousand patients used the service during the one-year study, and approximately 30 physicians under the ProHealth umbrella actively employed webVisit in their practice.
The original aim was to learn whether patients would be interested in using the Internet to consult with their doctors, but as Paul Bluestein, ConnectiCare's chief medical officer, notes, primarily they wanted to find a way to increase patient satisfaction and access to care.
The resulting positive reaction from both doctors and patients, alongside a reduction in the cost of care, has proved the program an all-around win. "It is the next step in the delivery of health care and medicine," says Deborah Hoyt, director of public relations for ConnectiCare.
Services that can be accessed through webVisit include non-urgent health-care matters, including requesting a referral for a specialist, making a follow-up appointment and renewing an existing prescription - provided at no additional cost.
Patients may also request a "medical encounter," for which they are responsible for a modest co-pay. After filling out a form to explain symptoms and concerns to the doctor, the physician returns a diagnosis or recommended course of action, usually within one day.
A majority of physicians and patients in the study preferred the online visits for communication and non-urgent health matters, and overall it has been shown to be quicker and more convenient than taking care of matters like checking lab results in person or over the phone.
Benefits of the program have also extended beyond the issues dealt with through the virtual visit, with patients commenting that travel time to the doctor, along with potential lost work hours, was reduced or eliminated.
Physicians and their offices are in turn freed to concentrate their in-house care efforts on more urgent matters, while still compensating doctors for their professional out-of-office consultations. ConnectiCare is the first health insurer in Connecticut to reimburse physicians for virtual visits.
In the past, "Doctors were worried about e-mail contact not being controlled," explains Jack Reed, executive director of ProHealth. For instance, when a patient e-mailed a physician before the program it might be overly lengthy without including all of the necessary information needed to make a decision. With webVisit, the structure is in place to help patients and doctors communicate clearly while facilitating efficient care, with the communication remaining exclusively between the two parties. This commitment to security and privacy ensures the service's viability and increases participants confidence in its results.
"We think this has strong applications for the future, for instance in child care," Reed notes.
The webVisit option is also well-suited to patients with chronic conditions that call for regular contact with the doctor, such as those with high blood pressure and diabetes. Other health insurance providers in the state have expressed interest in the program, and Reed expects more participants to enroll in the coming months.
It is a slow process, but Reed believes the program's unhurried implementation is the key to its long-term success, since the timing allows for increased knowledge that will make the program continually effective. "We know a lot more about its effectiveness now than we did a year ago," Reed says.
Program officials are quick to stress that webVisit is meant for patients with an ongoing relationship with a physician, and is not for first-time or urgent visits.
By offering the service, ConnectiCare and physicians hope ultimately to strengthen these existing doctor-patient relationships. "Medicine always needs a human touch," explains Hoyt. "The program is not meant to replace care, but to supplement it."
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